Team 7b Science​About Dr. Ower

About Dr. OwerI have been teaching on Team 7B at Wilmette Junior High School since 2006. While teaching is my primary role in education, I have kept myself busy in education's many facets. I have earned my masters and doctorate degrees, I have been a guest speaker at DePaul University on action research in the science classroom, I presented white papers on the role of science education in socio-scientific issues, and I have participated in the review of science items for the ISAT. I currently score ISA student responses and I review science curricula for the Illinois State Board of Education.

I earned my undergraduate degree in elementary education from Illinois State University. Aside from my education courses, I focused most of my studies in physics, geology, and biology. In 2009, I began working on my masters in science education through DePaul University. My masters research at DePaul focused on how constructivist and inquiry-based curricula and pedagogy affected students' retention and understanding of science concepts. My study found a statistically significant difference in student understanding and retention between students taught using constructivism/inquiry and traditional lecture/lab methods. Students who are taught using constructivism/inquiry retain science concepts longer, have a better ability to explain these topics, and can better justify their claims regarding these topics.

When I completed my masters, I was asked to stay at DePaul in their curriculum studies doctoral program. My dissertation topic was on the phenomenology of inquiry-based science curricula design and implementation. Researchers have called for detailed accounts of how teachers experience implementing inquiry-based curricula. My study responded to this call and offered recommendations for curriculum developers and school administrators to help ensure the success of new inquiry-based curricula.

Science Education PhilosophyScience education has historically focused on the transmission of content from the teacher to the student. This scholar-academic approach is often accompanied by hands-on activities that do not engage students with authentic scientific practices. Rather than design an investigation or discuss the strengths and weaknesses of a given methodology, students participate in cookie cutter labs that merely support what they have already been told. This practice does not engage students in scientific processes and inhibits their opportunity to become scientifically literate.

With an increased demand for STEM graduates, it is important that elementary teachers lay the foundation of what will become a lifelong love of science. Teaching students through primarily "unscientific" pedagogies will not help in this endeavor. To truly engage with science, students must participate in authentic scientific processes. Our classroom curriculum is founded in an inquiry framework for learning. Students engage with ideas through exploration, investigate these ideas with exploration or experimentation, and apply their learned knowledge to relevant and new situations. Concluding most investigations, students must make claims of what they learned and undergird their claims with evidence collected during the investigations. This method connects students with scientific processes and reflects what happens in the scientific community.

Our investigations are designed to increase students' abilities to design fair experiments, develop observation skills, improve communication of findings (e.g. scientific drawings, data tables, and charts), and identify weaknesses within experiment design and results. While definitions and facts area component of our learning, they are not the priority of our investigations. The goal of our curriculum is to familiarize students with the scientific enterprise, allow them to discover/create knowledge, and engage them in the practices and processes that undergird the field of science. Our hope is that students will leave 7th grade with an understanding of how science operates as a discipline, gain an increased understanding of concepts in the earth and life sciences, confront their scientific misconceptions, and possess a critical framework for assessing information they encounter in their everyday lives.

Educational Background

Doctor of EducationDePaul University, 2017

Master of Science in Science EducationDePaul University, 2011

Bachelor of Science in Elementary EducationIllinois State University, 2006